I have always prioritized my relationship with my best friend; she was like my soulmate. We have been through everything together; we were often identified as twins, same age, same name, same height. It was like I said we were like soulmates.
I have always known that keeping secrets could either straighten or destroy a relationship, so I tried as much as I could to be transparent with my bestie, and the same goes with her.
But something happened that kept me in a dilemma situation about whether I should tell her or not. She got into a relationship with one of my very distant cousins. I call him a cousin because we were not really related by blood, but his family was so close to us that when I was still very young, I mistook him for my cousin when actually he was just a family friend. So Matthew was someone I thought I could trust with my friend's heart, because throughout the years we had known each other, he had proven to be reliable.
And my friend was so in love with him, and sincerely, I was happy for her. It had been so long since she got into another relationship because of the trauma that came with it. I could often see how lonely she was whenever I talked about someone I liked or someone I wished to date, so when Matt came and swept her of her feet, I could genuinely see how much she loved him. She was really happy, and that gave me some sense of peace since I thought she was in safe hands.
But that changed when Matt attempted to kiss me, and it got worse when he started confessing his undying stupid love to me. I was shocked, angry, and betrayed, but when I couldn't tell my friend whenever she came excited talking about what Matthew the goat did for her, because of that, I started distancing myself from both of them. I blocked Matthew, warned him even, but the fool still got a new line and chatted me up, sending a voicenote on WhatsApp, begging that I should give him a chance, and I was confused, a chance at what exactly.
I was feeling guilty for keeping Matthew's advances on me a secret; it almost caused a serious problem between me and my friend. I didn't want to be the reason why she broke up with Matthew, but keeping her in the dark would only damage our relationship.
There was one message Matthew sent to me, and that destroyed the last string of patience I had. He said he was always looking for a way to get to me, but I never took him seriously, so he thought he dated my friend, which could get me jealous because my friend was boring and she wouldn't allow him to get intimate with her, and he never saw sleeping with two friends as a big deal; it's us girls that take it too seriously.
I was coming back from church when I saw the message. I just quickly forwarded it to my friend, with all the voice notes where he was confessing his undying and pretentious love. I told her why I kept it a secret, why I stopped hanging out with them, and why Matthew's topic when she talked about him didn't interest me because, to me, he was a boy in a man's body; he was a 30-year-old man with no idea of maturity. It's better she drop off this bus because this boy in a man's body wasn't for her.
She cried so bitterly, and at some point I thought she hated me, but that was beside the point because she thanked me for saving her. She told me I could have come to her earlier, that she wouldn't have taken me for a liar, and she said she was ignoring his red flags because he really liked him. It took her more than a year to get over Matthew's betrayal, and she didn't want anything related to the relationship.
Matthew, on the other hand, thought I betrayed him and that our relationship could have worked if I hadn't told my friend. The shamelessness and audacity of this man were beyond me. And that's how Matt's and my relationship with him got stained. We never talked, or he tried to talk to me, but I never gave him that privilege or attention.
He wasn't worth it.
All the images are mine
